The Grand Lady (Tsareena)
Steel Scavengers
The Blood Pit Arena, Lytala City
ARPers: @Neo Emolga @The Nonexistent Tazz, @LKWyvern

Upon the start of this little debate, The Lady knows that the absolute first thing she has to accomplish is to obscure the vision of any snipers in the area. Haq is a crackshot and supporting The Lady in the stands, but even without speech they have already made it clear that if it was clear enough for them to shoot, The Lady was likely to be dead already. Isana the Azumarill, guarding them and Oort, seconded that opinion. It was not that her opinion mattered very much to The Lady, but, including Anthony, three competent people expressed the sentiment that The Lady needs to avoid being sniped.

The more labyrinthine format of the Blood Pits helps with that, but The Grand Lady has no intention of relying solely on that, so once the announcement starts the festivities, Kaytoo immediately uses Haze, obscuring the team from view long enough for the Tsareena’s strategies to come to fruition.

The Lady, upon deciding that she was entering the Arena, immediately catalogued her strengths and weaknesses. She quickly realized that while she was durable and strong, she had the mobility lamed Mudsdale unless she used her little ascot (which merely traded one problem for another). So she sought a strategy that would allow her to capitalize on her strengths and render her weaknesses less relevant.

First is the obvious: except for the nameless Manectric (whose situation The Grand Lady has acute empathy for), everyone is wearing lots of armor. Between Paramid vests, ballistic strike plates, and actual steel armor, The Lady is accentuating everyone’s defensiveness at the expense of mobility.

Kaytoo keeps up the Haze as Durkon imparts a silver energy into boulders hidden therein. Everyone on the team knows the signal for when to begin to act more directly, but over the Lady’s earpiece, Isana groans, “Come on, where’s your backup?”

The Lady is about to answer when, almost on cue, she feels the first raindrop. Then the next, and the next, until a veritable downpour spews forth from the heavens, making visibility quite poor.

Over the earpiece, The Lady has a sardonic tone, “Satisfied, Isana?” The aqua rabbit gives a small groan, but focuses on protecting her two charges in the Claydol’s sniper nest.

Kaytoo stops spewing forth her Haze, and as the dark smoke clears, the Lady, sword and shield in hand, takes a few steps forward like she’s on a catwalk. She uses her sword to throw her hair off to one side, then stops walking as she puts her hand on her hip.

Overhead, Jabis the Vikavolt spots the Lady despite the poor visibility and tries to take advantage of the storm through the use of Thunder. To the bug’s surprise, the bolt veers off entirely to one side, striking the nameless Manectric instead, and he seems no worse for wear despite taking a powerful bolt of electricity to the face.

Lightning Rod, the Lady grins to herself. As though I’d go to the trouble of setting up ideal weather for my strategy and then letting others use it against me. Aloud, all she says is, “Now.”

To the front of The Lady, Gloria makes a downward gesture with her hands.

And then the battlefield truly descends into chaos.

The Lady has timed her order just right: she ensured that there were enough fliers in the air for this effect to be devastating, but there is not enough time for them to start using their superior maneuverability to take potshots at the powerful but ground bound Lady and her team as the move Gravity takes effect.

Jabis the Vikavolt is significantly less smug as he is thrown towards the ground, unable to sustain the lift that would keep him afloat, just like some other fliers. Unlike some of them, however, Jabis does not have enough maneuverability to keep from crashing. He tries to use his gun, rigged to function with his control of electromagnetism, to fire at the Lady, but discovers that the greater acceleration from gravity plants his bullet in the ground many feet from the Tsareena. Further to his dismay, he is also the subject who reveals what Durkon prepared in the Haze.

Stealth Rock.

Jabis enters the area of effect of the hazards, and immediately is buffeted by several large boulders, injuring him badly. When he finally looks up, he finds himself looking directly at the Lady.

He searches desperately for any hint of mercy or pity in her eyes, any hint that he is not, in fact, about to die.

The Lady gives his head an almost dainty looking kick.

Jabis the Vikavolt (Independent) has been eliminated.

The Lady gives a grin, knowing almost certainly that at least some of the cameras around are pointed at her.